


reeling through the midnight streets

by liesmyth



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: Astral Projection, Dream Sex, Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character(s), Minor Laurent/OC, Pining, Visions in dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-06-19 01:07:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15498897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liesmyth/pseuds/liesmyth
Summary: The first vision came to him at night.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dragonmage27](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonmage27/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [dragonmage27](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonmage27/), for inspiring the best ideas and surviving the world's most exhausting exams. Infinite thanks to [fakexpearls](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakexpearls) for betaing. You guys rock ❤

The first vision came to him at night.

Laurent turned around to lie on his back, tangled up in cool silk sheets, and suddenly there was a weight on top of him that hadn’t been there before; a man’s body, large and solid. He looked up to see dark eyes and long lashes, a head of curls bent down to lay light kisses over Laurent’s chest. They were both naked, skin to skin, and Laurent felt the man’s arousal press hard against his leg. He swallowed.

This was intriguing, he told himself. It felt good, quite unlike his usual dreams – some of them, dark and feverish, filled with a familiar voice, Laurent did his best not to think about. Even his most common fantasies, being fucked roughly with his face shoved down into a pillow, weren’t something he liked to remember in daylight for all that they left him hot and hard, rutting frantically against the mattress.

This dream felt lighter, somehow. The man’s dark head was kissing a path down his chest, bending further to take one nipple between his teeth, and Laurent shivered. Dazed, he brought one hand up to rest on the man’s shoulder. It was warm and solid with muscle, and the tips of his finger caught over a ridge of raised scar tissue. Soft curls brushed against the back of Laurent’s thumb, and he pressed down with his hand, wanting more.

Laurent felt the man’s low chuckle under his hand, against the bare skin of his chest. “Alright,” he said, and then he put his mouth lower across his stomach, and lower still, tongue sliding along the crease of his thigh, pressing with his cheek over Laurent’s cock.

It was… Laurent had never had this done to him before, never even fantasised about it for more than a fleeting moment. There was the surprising feeling of warm suction over the tip of his cock, and Laurent was torn between throwing his head back against the pillow and sitting up on his elbows to catch a glimpse of lips stretched obscenely across his cock, sucking him in. His hand found the man’s head again, tangling in those dark hair, wanting to see. The man raised his head just then, found Laurent’s eyes with a knowing look.

He came like that in the dream, staring into a stranger’s eyes, and when he woke up the sheets were dry and barely mussed, and Laurent did his best to put the strange dream out of his mind.

-

His day began early. Laurent liked mornings best, with the palace half asleep from the night’s revelries and the promises of a new day laid out in front of him in golden sunlight. He went through his correspondence over breakfast, sitting by the fireplace in his study, thick missives on their small silver trays. This morning he had nine; coloured inks on heavy paper, embossed and heavy with ribbons. Soiree, luncheon, private meeting, one long letter from all the way in Varenne.

After breakfast he took his morning appointments: the court chamberlain, who notified him of a satisfactory lack of scandals brewing over the horizon; Lady Jenna, who handled his engagements and reported on any secrets he needed to know; and Jord, more informally, walking on the way to the training ring. By mid-morning, when he made his way down the marble stairway with his body still mellow from the baths, the court had begun to awaken. Laurent met with the treasurer of the glassmaker guild of Arles; in the afternoon, he let Lady Vannes intimidate Lord Gerart of Tupen with her proposal for the new taxes on horse trading across provincial borders, so that he might be more amenable when Laurent approached him to offer a better deal.

That evening he led Lord Gerart among the hedges of the winter garden, encased in glass and warmed with braziers, to the alcove where he’d had a table prepared with refreshments and tall carafes of red wines. They discussed the new tax, and Gerart’s passion for horse racing, and would His Majesty like to visit his stables next time he was in Marches?

Over Gerart’s shoulder, Laurent’s eyes caught on a flash of movements in one of the alcoves – a courtier and one of the pets, sliding gracefully to his knees among the well-tended bushes. Unbidden, the dream from last night came to Laurent’s mind. The pet had thick dark hair, though it was straight and longer, tied with a ribbon over his nape, and Laurent thought of how his mouth must look, red and full, drooling slightly. Laurent stared.

At court, Laurent tried not to pay attention. Showing interest in anyone would cause speculation, he told himself, and so he’d practiced the art of watching but not really seeing, letting his gaze slide over. Now he watched the pet’s dark head bob slightly as he moved, the way his hand rested lightly on the courtier’s hip. Before today, Laurent had never imagined himself on the receiving end. Now he thought of grabbing a lover’s hair, just tight enough to keep his head still as he fucked into his mouth.

“Your Majesty,” Gerart said, and Laurent blinked.

“Yes,” With some difficulty, he tore his gaze away from the pet in the alcove. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Would you like to go back inside?”

-

Less than a week later, the dream came again.

He was being fucked. That should have felt more familiar, but it was nothing like Laurent’s usual dreams, either. He was on his back, cheek pressed into the sheets, one leg bent at the knee and splayed to the side with the other wrapped around the torso of the man thrusting down into him. It felt so full and heavy inside of him, the delicious drag of a thick cock sliding in and out of his rim, and Laurent whimpered at the feeling of it.

It was the same man. Laurent recognised that solid weight, the press of one callused hand over his hip. His mouth was on the crook of Laurent’s neck, pressing into the skin, whispering words there.

“Laurent,” he was saying, and the surprise he felt at that made him groan. “Laurent. You feel so good.”

It was overwhelming, being filled like this, the press of another body over his own, the sound of his own name. Laurent turned his head with a moan, eyes half-closed. This was his dream, with a lover so bold as to call him by name.

“Kiss me,” he commanded.

The man obeyed enthusiastically, finding Laurent’s mouth with his own, licking into it, sucking on Laurent’s lip just as he’d sucked his cock. Laurent’s hand pressed against the man’s nape, keeping him there, the other sliding down the rough expanse of his back, encouraging him to fuck in deeper.

When the man came inside of him in a hot spurt, Laurent closed his eyes tight and breathed through it, shivering at the feeling of it. He was hard and leaking; he thought of getting himself off in a way he usually wouldn’t, palming his cock until he came in a streak across his chest, utterly boneless, and then he thought – he had someone else to do it for him.

“Suck me off.” He said it against the man’s lips; then kissed him again for good measure, anticipating the feeling. “I want your mouth. I want – I can’t stop thinking about it,” he whispered, so stupidly earnest, but he felt the man’s lips curve into a smile, the softness in his voice when he breathed, “Laurent.”

-

Saying that he couldn’t stop thinking about it would be an exaggeration, but Laurent did think about it, more often than he probably should. They weren’t real, the strangely intense dreams and his dark-haired lover, and because it wasn’t real it felt worlds away from the sophisticated divertissements of Arles.

Sometimes – twice, three times a week – he would fall asleep in his bed and find himself somewhere else, trembling with pleasure. Then he would wake up, and his bed would be clean, his body well-rested, and Laurent would press his hands tight around his wrists and curl his fingers inside himself, trying to recapture the feeling of it.

The third time he dreamed of the man, Laurent was fucking him.

It felt good; that was all Laurent could think about at first. There was tight heat around his cock, adelicious friction, his whole body warm and sweaty with exertion and arousal. It felt good being inside someone like this, and so he thrust in and out and in it again, smooth and deep, chasing the sensation. And then his mind caught up with his body and he paused, uncertain, hips stuttering.

“Laurent?” It felt more familiar than it ought to, that voice calling his name. It felt better than he’d ever imagined to hear it like this, pleading.

The man nudged at Laurent’s hip with the heel of his foot. “Keep going.” He clenched around him where Laurent had stilled, only half inside, and Laurent made a hoarse sound at the feeling of it.

Tentatively, he started moving again. He began slow, shallow experimental thrusts, trying to figure out the angle and the depth and how to keep up a rhythm in the midst of all that pleasure that made it so hard to even think.

He felt fumbling, awkward and inexperienced, but the man didn’t seem to mind. “Don’t tease,” he said of Laurent’s halting pace, urging him with wordless moans and tight deliberate clenches of his hole around Laurent’s cock that had him groaning.

Laurent thought about it carefully, of giving it in the way he’d have liked to take, and then he shifted his weight on his spread knees and then thrust forward, sinking in deep. He felt the body under his own tremble, and he watched it with wonder, the sight of it just as thrilling as the arousal running through his veins.

“Fucking finally,” he said then, drawing a startled laugh out of Laurent. “Do that again.”

He said it looking up with hooded eyes, holding his spread thighs open so Laurent could fuck him deeper. Like this, Laurent got an eyeful of the man’s cock, hard and flushed, untouched and leaking at the tip, bobbing as their bodies moved together. Laurent stared, and thought about how it had felt inside of him. He swallowed.

He couldn’t hold on like this, didn’t even try. When he came he pulled back, stunned, so he could have a better look at what he’d done – there was thick white come leaking, slowly, from between the man’s parted thighs; that had been him, he’d finished in there, inside of someone. Laurent wanted to raise one hand and scoop it up with his fingers. He wanted to do it all over again. He wanted – the man had full lips; Laurent couldn’t stop staring at his mouth. 

“Can I.” Laurent’s throat was dry. “I want to suck your cock,” he said, and his voice didn’t sound like his own.

The man sat up on the bed. “Kiss me,” he said, reaching up to circle Laurent’s wrist with one hand. The other hand he brought up to cradle Laurent’s cheek as their lips met, gently, with unexpected tenderness. It took some times before Laurent remembered himself enough to pull back.

“I meant it.” I felt you inside me, he wanted to say. I want to put my mouth on you and make you come. He shouldn’t want this, but here in his dream, couldn’t he do as he pleased? “Let me,” Laurent said. Then, since he was already there, he kissed the man on the lips again.

Laurent had a very precise idea of what to do and how to go about it – cocksucking was hardly a complex art, regardless of what the court in Arles seemed to believe – but once he resolved to do it, he kept getting distracted. The man had a very nice body, broad and muscled, all of him laid out for Laurent’s perusal. Laurent put his mouth over the hollow between the man’s collarbones, traced the planes of his chest with the tips of his fingers and the palm of his hands.

Later, when he finally swallowed around him, that gentle touch on his face came back, and Laurent looked up and met the man’s eyes and saw something there that was complex and scary in its vastness.

He wished he could put it into words.

-

Week after week the dreams kept coming, as the winter gave way to spring and the days begun to grow longer.

Early spring was a sombre season in Vere. Every years the memory of Marlas came around like an old scar, dulled at the edges, that still ached on long nights of bad weather. And there were other anniversaries, as well. The public commemoration for his brother and father didn’t leave Laurent half as drained as the one for his uncle did; he put on his crown and his best mask, and stood tall and solemn in front of the kingdom, trying to recapture that feeling of breathless relief he’d felt when he’d first received the news, before the vacuum left by the death of the Regent turned into a vicious battle for political survival.

These days, Laurent welcomed the visions eagerly. The man in the dreams had warm lips and kind hands, and was more than skilled with both; Laurent had stopped being surprised and started being grateful for the reprieve the vision granted him.

Once, when he found himself in the dream world, nothing was happening. He was clothed, even, in a nightshirt that was lighter than what he would wear in this time of the year, curled on his side around a book and not another body.

That was disappointing. He had plenty of books in the library at the palace, probably even this one, for all that it was an Akielon treatise on history he had never seen before. Laurent made careful note of the title, then turned around with a huff. The other side of the bed was empty and cold, so unlike what he’d come to expect from these dreams. Frowning to himself, Laurent sat up and pushed the bed curtains open, taking in the room around him.

The room was alight; that was the first thing Laurent noticed. Until now, all his dreams had been of half-shadows and flickering candles. The second thing that came to his mind was that this could not be Arles; the décor in the room reminded him of the forts of the south, utilitarian and a bit rural. Homely. It reminded him of Acquitart.

The third thing was that the man – his dream lover, with the dark curls and the broad shoulders – was in the room as well, standing at a writing desk in the corner, and Laurent felt unexpected relief at the sight. He too was clothed, and the sight of that was odd, and like this, in the bright light of the lamps, there was something about him that kept nagging at the edges of Laurent’s mind, something – about a sword, he thought, and red banners. His uncle’s colours? He tried to place it, to no avail. The thought itched at him.

He cleared his throat.

“Why aren’t you in bed?”

The man’s shoulders shook as he startled in surprise. He turned around quickly, and his face brightened when he saw Laurent.

“I thought you went to sleep.”

“I did,” said Laurent. “Waiting for you.”

There was petulance in his voice. The man’s smile was warmer than the light of all the lamps in the room. “I’ll be along,” he said. “Promise.”

Laurent settled with his back against a pillow, fingers picking at the short sleeve of the unfamiliar nightshirt while he watched the man busy himself around the room. In this light, the white mass of scarring along his broad back stood out starkly against tanned skin. Not for the first time, Laurent wondered why the scars were there at all – he always felt them under his fingers when the man moved above him in bed and sometimes, when Laurent was fucking him, he felt the urge to bend his head and press kisses into the man’s back, trace the rough scar tissue with his lips and tongue. A criminal would have whipping scars, he supposed, or a deserter. Someone dangerous. The thought gave him a thrill.

When the man joined him in bed he was still dressed, and his touch was far too light, skimming over Laurent’s clothing but never under. Laurent, who’d come to expect sex from these dreams, almost rebuked him for it, but there was something unspeakably charming in being held chastely like this, fingers trailing gently through the hair over his ear, aimless kisses placed over his brow and mouth with closed lips.

This time, Laurent dreamt of falling asleep.

-

For the first proper day of spring, Laurent went for a ride across the countryside. He went discreetly, leaving the palace unseen from a side entrance in the stables, taking along only a handful of his men, for Jord’s sake.

That was a promise he’d been trying to keep, since that time not long after Uncle’s death when Prince Laurent had mysteriously disappeared from Arles, rumours of assassinations spreading all over the kingdom while a young pet arrived at Lady Rowane’s estates and left a few days later with the proofs Laurent had needed to bring down Guion’s faction for good. It was only after his return that Laurent had realised that perhaps leaving so abruptly on his own might not have been entirely wise.

That had been almost two years ago. Laurent set out on a gallop just past the city gates, and he thought – life was safer, now. He could afford to sleep at night, which he did, alone. The sun was bright on his face, and warm,  almost like human touch.

He closed his eyes and breathed in, relishing the silence around him, the weightless feeling of riding into the wind. He willed himself to stop thinking.

-

The next time Laurent dreamt, he was tied up to the bed.

It would be a lie if he didn’t admit to himself he had considered the scenario, but he’d never pictured it in such details. There were soft pillows under his hips, the ribbons tying up his wrists were large and silken. His legs were parted and bent at the knees, exposing all of him, feet restrained at the ankles; and there was the lover of his dream, who had one hand resting over Laurent’s hip and the other down between his thighs, stretching him open. And then, under Laurent’s eyes, he bent his head to lick a long stripe across his twitching hole.

Laurent’s whole body trembled with the sensation of it. He shifted, uselessly, and pulled on his restrains with his arms and shoulders. They didn’t give way.

“Don’t move,” the man said, low and fond; and because he’d told him not to naturally Laurent had to do it again.

The slap to his hip took him by surprise; lazy and quick, it had a sting to it that betrayed the strength behind it. Laurent liked the feel of the impact, the commanding air. He wondered if he could get the man to do it again. “I hardly felt that,” he said. “You know. I could have your head for hitting me.”

The man paid him no mind, and curled his fingers inside Laurent in a way that had him shuddering. Then he used his mouth again, pushed his tongue in with a wet noise. He worked him up slowly, methodically, and Laurent was helpless against it. He couldn’t move, couldn’t pull away or grab at the man’s hair to urge him to go deeper. Even raising his head to look was a strain, and all he could do was sink his cheek into the sheets and lose himself to the sparks that rose through his body in time with the delicious stretch inside of him.

It would be easy to let himself go, to stop thinking and reduce himself to moaning with his eyes closed like some wanton thing out of a dirty story. Instead, “Did you become impotent?” Laurent asked. “Is that why you’re taking so long with it?”

With his hands tied Laurent could still talk, and of that he did plenty, to see if he could provoke the man to shut him up in more creative ways. It didn’t seem to work. At one point the man pulled back slightly to press a kiss up on the inside of Laurent’s thigh.

“Next time,” he said. “I should gag you.”

“Next time,” said Laurent. “Or you could come up here and put your cock in my mouth. I’ll have to shut up.” He said it dazed, like he felt, then shivered when the man closed his blunt teeth over the tender skin of his thigh, and sucked.

Idly, looking at the darkened canopy above the bed, Laurent said, “You’re very good at this.”

That got the man to laugh, and the sound was almost as pleasant as the feeling of warm suction over his rim, but he didn’t relent. He didn’t take Laurent’s suggestion either, but kept at it where he was, opening him up slowly with his tongue and his fingers – it had to be four of them, by now; he could hardly clench down on them, full as he felt.

Every once in a while the man would pause and pull back a bit, sit up on his knees with his fingers half inside Laurent’s hole until the feeling of it turned maddening, and Laurent found himself writhing in place, canting his hips to seek whatever little friction he could manage.

“You’re cruel.” He didn’t recognise his own voice. The man had bent his head low again; when he chuckled, Laurent felt the air move against his oversensitive cock.

“Sometimes,” the man said, and he pursed his lips to press a kiss against the leaking tip.

Laurent’s hips bucked. “Suck me.”

But the man had pulled away again. “I don’t think I need to,” he said. “I think when I finally fuck you, you’ll come just from that.” He’d gone back to working his fingers in and out of Laurent; he’d been at it for so long that Laurent could hear the sound of it, slick and dirty.

“Fuck me.” He liked that idea; he liked it a lot, and he thrashed into his bindings, arching up off the bed, raising his hips up like an offering. “Fuck me,” he said, again, a whine in the back of his throat. He felt as though his body was burning up, drunk on want and the need for release. “Please.”

That got the man to listen. He sat up on his knees, and put his hands on Laurent’s hips. Both of them, one wet and slick with spit and oil.

“Laurent,” he said. “You only had to ask.”

-

Not long after that, Laurent fell sick. It was a nuisance, but ultimately of very little consequence. He explained as much to the servant who came wake him up at the usual hour and found him with his face red and blotched, with the back of one hand thrown against his pulsating forehead.

There was nothing to be done, he assured the court chamberlain after Paschal came visit him and told him it would go away with medication and rest. He took the medication and declined the rest, and forewent his morning training after he realised that it would end with Orlant putting him on his back five minutes in. Lady Jenna sniffed very delicately and informed him that there were no rumours or imminent plots he should be aware of, but that might change soon if the King were to kneel over in the middle of holding court.

He thanked her and went on with his day, and it was only after lunch, when he couldn’t keep down the little bread he’d managed to eat in the first place, that Laurent admitted defeat. Paschal came by again with more foul-tasting, green-coloured medicinal powder and a concoction the shade of amber that made him feel drowsy almost immediately. He fell into bed and found himself a world away, climbing down unfamiliar steps somewhere he’d never been, standing under a foreign sun.

He looked down to see a round terrace flanked on one side by a waist-height wall, facing a turquoise sea. The crash of the waves mingled with the noises from the birds overhead, and Laurent paused mid-step, breathing in the saltiness of the air. He still found himself amazed at how realistic these drams were. If he jumped down from the terrace into the sea below, would he feel wetness on his skin, taste the acrid salt of the waves?

Laurent followed the stairways down to the terrace, glancing around curiously. A thin outer circle was pavement in white marble, but the terrace was filled with dark sand, more reminiscent of the training grounds at Arles than the pet ring. On the inner side of the terrace there were low benches and a wide door that led inside, and there Laurent’s eyes found the man, a familiar sight in this odd place.

Relieved, he made his way over, walking over marble and sand in unfamiliar open sandals. For all that it was the middle of the day he was still wearing a nightshirt, sleeveless white cotton with strange clasps at the shoulders. His lover was naked instead, which Laurent found promising. He didn’t bother hiding his appreciation.

“Hello,” he said. The man’s skin glistened under the bright sun; when Laurent traced the length of one collarbone his finger became slick with oil. That gave him ideas.

“I want to fuck you,” Laurent said, and the man made a choked noise and flushed high in his cheeks.

“Laurent. Don’t… not here.”

Annoyingly, he had to stand on the tips of his toes to reach the man’s mouth with a kiss. It was undignified; he did it anyway. “Why not?”

“Laurent.” The kiss turned deep, but the man pulled his body back. “Aktis is about to come out.“

Laurent followed the man’s gaze to the door next to the benches. Only then he realised they weren’t alone – there were a few other men milling about, attired similarly, which was to say not at all. Laurent reconsidered his first impression of the arena on the terrace. More like the ring than the training grounds, then.

“Are we to fuck in the sand, lover? That seems unpractical.” The view was very pretty at least, if rustic, the sea and the waves. Romantic, even.

“Laurent.” The man didn’t sound very romanced at all, but his body betrayed his interest. “Don’t do this now. Sit.”

Laurent glanced at the benches, obviously a viewing area. “Are you going to give me a show?”

“If you want,” the man replied, easily, and smiled. “You can tell me how liked it.”

Would he be expected to provide criticism? Laurent pondered the implications as he went to sit on the bench. He smoothed the cotton of his nightshirt over his knees, noticing how short it was. Good thing that it was the middle of the day, hot enough to sweat.

Soon enough, a second man walked out of the door into the daylight. He had a broad physique, with large shoulders and very muscled arms, and he too was covered in oil. His hair was cut close to his scalp, and he wasn’t as handsome as Laurent’s lover. The man bowed to the both of them – to Laurent’s lover first,  strangely, and to Laurent only second – then moved towards the arena.

Laurent shifted his weight on the bench, settling in better to watch.

Under his eyes, the two men grappled at each other in the arena. The purpose seemed to be to subdue the adversary until he could no longer move, something Laurent had seen many times before, but this looked far less staged than the ring fights in Arles. There, winners and losers were often decided in advance so that each pet might best showcase their qualities. Here the holds were powerful, the presses rough, and when Laurent’s lover was thrown off the other man his scarred back hit the sand hard.

He was back on his feet in the space of a heartbeat, charging the other man and tackling him to the ground. Laurent sat up straighter in the bench, intrigued in a different way. He’d stopped looking at this like he would a court performance, and he thought – this was sparring.

It was engaging to watch. The men had excellent form, and the part of Laurent that had trained since adolescence to be on par with the best of warriors took notice of some of those holds, the way twisting an arm the right way could send a grown man to his knees. It was intriguing, also, in a way that had nothing to do with practicality and all to do with the view: muscular bodies, one of which Laurent knew intimately well, twisting against each other, on top of one another. He wondered how this kind of sparring would carry over to the bedroom.

But there was something else in there, too, nagging at him. His lover’s face looked different like this, made different with sweat and exertion and the harsh light of the day, sweat running down his forehead. There was something to do with this place on the sea, the warmth in the air, and the colour red – but there was no red here, only the stark white of marble.

In the arena, Laurent’s lover had put the other man on his back, and kept him there. When he finally let him go they clasped hands; his lover helped the man back to his feet and asked him if he wanted to go again, and a seagull cried out high up in the sky. Laurent felt cold.

The man – Laurent’s lover, who was not real, but only a creature of Laurent’s dreams – had spoken in Akielon. It was odd, that Laurent could tell languages apart in the middle of a dream, but he did, and then he thought back to the countless hours he’d spent teaching himself the language of their enemies, after that terrible day when the battlefield had turned as red as the crimson of the Akielon banners.

He stood up. His footsteps were loud against the stone. Akielons wore sandals, and they put marble everywhere. It was warmer in Akielos, and their capital was built on a cliff right on the sea where –

“Laurent?”

The voice calling his name had become intimately familiar. He’d thought about it sometimes, during the day, wondered what it said about himself that he’d dreamed himself a lover who wouldn’t respect his rank. Nobody had addressed him by name so often in years. Not since Marlas, he thought now, and he felt dizzy.

He kept walking, slowly, climbing the steps he’d descended earlier. When he got to the top, would he see the city of Ios? Laurent had seen sketches of it, made by merchants’ apprentices on trade journeys. As a child, he’d thought it dreamy. At fourteen, he’d come to hate it.

“Laurent. Are you alright? You stood up like that and you looked–”

A hand came to lay on his shoulder. The touch felt unbelievably real, as it always did, and Laurent thought that it wasn’t fair, that he would dream of this of all things, so often and so pleasantly, until he came to crave it. When he turned around, he knew what he would see. He should have seen it long before.

He turned around. There was concern in those eyes, and Laurent wished, desperately, that he would wake up.

“Damianos?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't let the ending fool you. This is shaping up to be the cheesiest fluff I'll ever write. | Find me on [tumblr](https://liesmyth.tumblr.com).


	2. Chapter 2

To Laurent’s annoyance, the dreams did not stop.

He still dreamed of tangled sheets in unfamiliar rooms, with the same man. That he hated Damianos seemed to make no difference to whatever sick part of himself had given him the dreams.

The next time it happened, Laurent recoiled. He didn’t want to be there. He didn’t want it to feel good.

“No,” he said, in the darkness. “I don’t– stop.” He said, and the man – Damianos – looked down with concern and said “Laurent?

Laurent closed his eyes and refused to speak. He remained still as Damianos muttered some soothing nonsense under his breath, then turned on his stomach and went quiet. Sleep was slow in coming and Laurent felt restless, looking at candlelight flickering across the scarred expanse of Damianos’s back, trying to understand.

When the dream came again Laurent went along with it, and every touch of skin and press of lips felt like a burn, searing at his skin. Once they were finished, short of breath and sweaty and tangled up in the sheets, he turned on his elbow and traced the tip of his finger lightly across the streak of come cooling on Damianos’s stomach.

“Sometimes,” said Laurent. “I struggle to understand why I’m here with you, when you destroyed everything.” He whispered it looking into Damianos’s eyes like a lover, waiting for a reaction. He hoped his words would hurt. 

But Damianos, oddly, simply laughed. He put his hand on the back of Laurent’s neck and tugged him down for a kiss; Laurent was so surprised that he let him. He closed his eyes into that warm embrace, and let himself be held.

—

The morning after Laurent woke up from the dream about the white cliffs he began making preparations to leave Arles. He wanted to look from his window and see open skies, travel on horseback for hours, and clear his head. He wanted to sleep in a different bed, and perhaps there Damianos wouldn’t follow.

The fortress of Maraine, on the coast in the province of Marches, was three weeks away from Arles at the leisure pace of the court. Laurent decided they were to make it in half that time and enjoyed issuing invitations publicly, to make the lord and ladies of the court scramble. He included the Akielon ambassador in his party, just to keep her far from the Council in his absence. The journey was uneventful, and the air turned pleasantly cool with breeze as they marched closer to the sea. All day Laurent was in high spirits, but at night the dreams came back, over and over. 

He tried taking drugs for deep sleep and tiring himself out so that he would not dream, but none of that seemed to work. He tried picking fights with Damianos, spewing insults and cruelties, but Damianos merely looked at him with confused worry as he worked himself up into a frenzy. Once Laurent succeeded in enraging him even beyond all his plans, and Damianos punched the bedpost so hard it shook, then walked out of the room leaving Laurent alone with his thoughts. Most of the times, though, he remained in the room looking concerned. “When you’ve calmed down,” he said. “We can talk about it. In the morning.”

But when the dream came next, Damianos didn’t seem to remember anything had happened at all.

— 

The stay in Marches was refreshing. Laurent met with the lords of the province and visited the pavilions that were being set up for the spring fair, and at dawn he found himself walking with his feet bare along the bay where he’d learned to swim as a child with Auguste. A week into his stay the fort’s steward organised a feast for Laurent’s party from Arles, the local nobility and all their retinues, and the great hall with its hammerbean roof was packed full and warm with levity and laughter. From the corner of his eye Laurent saw a flash of movement, a familiar gaze, and then it was gone. 

After, Laurent extricated himself from the crowd and walked to the rooms that in his childhood had been his father’s. The retainers al Maraine seemed to despair that Laurent consistently retired alone every night. The drawer in the nightstand was stocked full with perfumed oils, and the servants who came to his chambers were good-looking and solicitous, and wore the glittering jewellery of pets.

When Laurent shut the door behind him, he knew he wasn’t alone. He sat down on the divan in the anteroom and waited. 

“You took your time.” 

“I’ve been here a week,” Laurent said. Calmly, he met Nicaise’s eyes. “You should know, with how hard you’ve been avoiding me.”

“I had better things to do than seeing you.”

“I can imagine.” Laurent wiped his hands over the knees of his trousers. He’d had some wine at dinner, and it was warm in the room. The servants always kept plenty of candles burning in addition to the fireplaces, as if they thought that the soft scents and flickering lights would sway Laurent into taking full advantage of the services they could offer. “Where is Andries?”

“Andries is a whore,” Nicaise said. His voice wasn’t as crystal-pure as it had been once, but his pouty lips hadn’t changed, and they curved around insults all the same. “I sent him away.”

“So that you could talk to me alone?” Before Nicaise could offer a scathing denial, Laurent gestured with his arm. “Sit down.”

Nicaise had come into Laurent’s quarters uninvited and now stood with his feet planted on the finely woven carpet, head up high like it was only right he should belong in the King’s rooms. He sat down slowly, with perfect posture, and then shot Laurent a glare. 

“I hate it here. It’s dull and humid.”

“Madame Renette writes good things about your progress.” Renette, who’d served in Queen Hennike’s household once, wrote also that Nicaise was contemptuous and brash and ill-mannered, but still vastly better than he had been two years ago. 

Nicaise’s nose, just slightly too wide for his face, turned up in distaste. “I don’t like Madame Renette. She’s rude and her aprons are horrible.” Nicaise had written Laurent only once, in the large scratches of a boy who’d just learned how to hold a quill, to demand a male tutor. To take his lessons with a woman, unsupervised, was the mark of a child — not that Nicaise was one anymore. Across the kingdom there would be boys Nicaise’s age working their apprenticeships, becoming betrothed, going to war. Some would be working in brothels. But Laurent had wanted Nicaise away from the court, away from men he might be tempted to turn to, out of learned behaviour if nothing else, and now he watched Nicaise’s chest rise and fall with the weight of words that he wouldn’t speak. 

Finally, “Take me back to Arles.” 

Nicaise’s voice rang petulant, lower in pitch than it would have once. Laurent looked away. 

“Is that all you meant to say? You know the answer.”

The last time they’d had this conversation Nicaise had been crying, big hot tears that made his voice tremble but didn’t detract from his attractiveness. He was not as pretty now and he was not crying, probably because he had learned enough to know that it wouldn’t work on Laurent. 

“Am I your prisoner now? Is that it?”

Laurent snorted. Nicaise could have run away any time, if he’d ever for a moment believed it would be in his best interests.

“You _lied to me_ , and you’re sitting there _laughing_ —” 

“When you finish your education,” Laurent interrupted. “You can ask me for — anything. I’ll give you a purse and you could go wherever you want. To Arles, even. I won’t forbid it.”

“Won’t forbid it,” Nicaise said. “That’s generous of you. You promised—”

“I said that I’d look after you.”

“You promised you would offer for me. Not lock me here away from everything and everyone.”

Nicaise, Laurent reminded himself, was a boy. He had been spoiled and moulded for years, and he had never been rejected. In his years away from Arles, he might remember his time there with fondness. He probably still told himself that he never would have been discarded, had Uncle lived. He didn’t understand. 

“What I could offer then…” Laurent paused. “I can do more, now.”

“You say this because you have no idea,” Nicaise said. His voice had turned low, smooth when he usually would sulk. “Let me,” he said. “Please.” 

And then he shifted closer on the cushions and put his hand on Laurent’s thigh. 

That Laurent didn’t jerk back as if he’d been burned was only because he’d been expecting it. He had been sixteen once, too, and confused. 

“Stop that,” he said, keeping his tone under control. Calm, almost bored. “You are ridiculous.”

“You are ridiculous,” Nicaise said. “Pathetic. You don’t know anything about —anything…”

He was sputtering. His face was flushed with humiliation, his hand abandoned on Laurent’s leg like an afterthought. 

“Go to bed,” Laurent said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, if you want. And be thankful.” 

That got Nicaise to throw him a venomous look. “I hate you.” 

“Nicaise…” Laurent left it at that. He stood up so that Nicaise might get the hint, speaking from over his shoulder. “Send in Andries after you leave.”

“Andries wants you to fuck him, you know. He has no idea.” When Nicaise spoke like this, he reminded Laurent of the child he’d once been. “You’re lonely and hateful. You have nothing and no one.” 

He shut the door behind him hard enough that it trembled in its hinges. 

— 

It was easy to forget himself in the dream. To go along with the frenzied need running through his veins, surrendering to the touch and the mounting pleasure, even if it was Damianos giving it to him. Laurent vowed never to forget that, at first, and so he bit into their kisses with bruising strength, pressed his fingers against Damianos’s skin hard enough to leave angry red marks. Damianos arched into it and opened his mouth under Laurent’s lips, and Laurent treacherously found himself thinking that this did not feel like hatred at all. 

—

Laurent’s birthday was late in the spring. The flowerbeds in the palace gardens were in bloom and the air was hot and perfumed, the trees ripe with fruit. As a child Laurent had often marked the day by going riding with his brother in the countryside around Arles; swimming in the river and snack on prunes and apples and the candied confections in the basket Auguste would charm the kitchen girls into making for them. They would stay out all day until the twilight, then make it back to the palace just in time for the evening feast. Not that Laurent had been allowed to attend the banquet back then, but the celebration of his birth had rated a day of feasting whether he was there or not.

As the King, Laurent’s birthday rated a ten-days whirlwind of parties and feasts and daytime events, and he would be expected to attend about half of them. The other half, those thrown by and for lesser nobles, were below his notice so that he wouldn’t be required to learn how to be in two places at once. For as demanding as the festivities would be it was still a less intricate affair than last year, his long-awaited Ascension. After a month of celebrations, it had seemed a real risk that the kingdom might run out of wine. This time around the only danger was that Laurent wouldn't find time to sleep for days - not that he minded, of late. The palace was readied for the arrival of guests from all over the kingdom, lords and ladies and a handful of merchants and bankers who lacked titles but had enough coin to buy the entire fleet twice over. There was a great hunt planned, and a masquerade, and every day was filled to the brink with evening parties and leisure mornings. 

At the luncheon hosted by the Kemptian ambassador Laurent was seated next to a visiting dignitary with a soft drawl that reminded him of his mother, and later over drinks he was introduced to a delegation from Alier in the south of Vere. Afterwards, they found themselves under the pergola on the eastern field where some of the courtiers were playing at racquets. The men had their sleeves rolled up, and the ladies had discarded the outer layers of their skirts. One of them was Lady Vannes, who came up to them looking to one of the ladies from Alier with a calculating eye. 

“Would you like to go for a game?” She said it to Laurent, even though she kept glancing to the Alier lady with a determination that was frankly admirable.

Laurent’s only concession to courtly sports was, on occasions, the Patran rapier. He had only a vague idea of what the game in the field entailed. But the sun was warm on the back of his neck and the grass bright green in front of him; it was a very pleasant day. He shrugged. “Why not?”

Another of the visitors from Alier offered to instruct him. His name was Lord Jerome, and Laurent had never seen him in Arles before — and he would stand out, usually, broad-shouldered and with the colourings of a borderman. There was something blunt about his manner that made Laurent pay attention as he spoke. 

“Whenever you’re ready, Your Majesty.” He extended Laurent the racquet, still holding it by the handle. Laurent studied the hold of Jerome’s hands, large and tanned, and he thought for a moment of Damianos in the dream. He repressed the image with a flicker of annoyance at himself. 

“Don’t let me win.” 

Jerome laughed. 

Laurent ended up losing the first game by a large margin, which left him irked even though he'd known it would happen. He insisted on a rematch that saw him faring better, but still the coordination necessary to score consistently escaped him. He decided, belatedly, that it was _fun_.

When he left the field, he felt as though it was far too soon. 

—

Sometimes in Laurent’s dreams the sun shone bright, and left golden stripes on Damianos’s skin. Damianos’s body looked more imposing in the light of the day than it did at night in bed, and his voice when he spoke Veretian was deep and guttural, almost accentless. Damianos seemed to be at his side almost every waking hour of this dream life, and Laurent knew there was something about all of this that he was missing, almost close enough to grasp. 

The divertissements in Arles ran late into the night, well into the dark hours of the early morning, and it was only natural that Laurent found himself catching sleep whenever he could, in the late day or mid-afternoon. He dreamed of glimpses of another world, the vivid tones of an Akielon spring — and Damianos, always there. 

He woke up angry at his own weakness. He didn’t need to know, Laurent told himself. It didn’t matter. 

—

The day before his birthday there was a hunt, a grand affair with dozens of participants and a veritable host of pavilions in the woods outside Arles. There were entertainments before the main event, music and songs, and refreshments displayed artfully on the long tables. It went all very well until it started to rain, a thunderous storm that began just as all the pavilions had been packed and there was nowhere to go besides stepping away from the trees and get drenched. 

Lady Vannes, Laurent noticed, manoeuvred herself so that she was very close to the pretty border lady she’d been relentlessly pursuing for the past few days. The lower part of her skirts had turned almost transparent, wet as it was, revealing the shape of her legs in a way that was too flattering to be accidental. He masked a laugh in the palm of his hand.

“This has been fun.”

It was Lord Jerome. Earlier, on the way there, he’d talked a bit about the hunting techniques practised in the Vaskian mountains, and Laurent had found himself listening with some interest. His hands were gloved today, handling the reins with ease, and the cloth of his shirt clung to his shoulders under the rain. 

“Were you expecting something different?” Laurent had. He had been looking forward to staying out all day, but now it seemed likely that they would return as soon as the rain gave signs of abating. Most of the courtiers would take the excuse of the weather to spend the rest of the day drinking hot spirits and playing cards, and Laurent might go to bed early instead, to try to see if it would rain in his dream. 

It was far from the kind of day he’d been anticipating. 

“If you want,” he heard himself saying, with a boldness that took him by surprise. “We can make our own fun. It would be a shame to let the rain stop us.” Jerome had bragged earlier of the merits of mounts from Alier, sturdy and bred for resilience. “I’ll race you,” Laurent offered.

“In this weather?”

The thunders had stopped, which was good, but the ground was slippery with mud. It would be a challenge. “If you can keep up.”

He stepped forward and gestured to one of the beaters to have his horse brought to him. That seemed to persuade Jerome, who followed along half a step behind. His lips curled when Laurent turned to look at him. “Perhaps I’ll beat you again.”

“You can try,” Laurent said, putting his foot in the stirrup and climbing up. It was raining still, thin cold drops, and the wind howled in his ears when he took off at a gallop. It was cold against his face, and it felt good. 

He laughed, and the wind blew it away.

— 

It was raining in the dream, also. He saw it through the windows, grey skies and lightning strikes; inside, Damianos took a sip from the tall glass of amber liquid placed next to his elbow. On the table between them was a deck of lacquered playing cards. 

“Laurent,” Damianos called, shaking him from his thoughts. “You’re staring.”

They seemed to be playing with their cards face-up. Laurent could see Damianos’s hand. It was very good, and Laurent strongly suspected Damianos had no idea what to do with it.

“Perhaps,” he said. “I’m thinking on how best to beat you.”

Laurent noticed that he was sitting with his legs thrown across Damianos’s thighs under the table, crossed at the ankle. Damianos’s hand was resting over his ankle, warm over the thin leather of his boot, and Laurent could feel the light press of his thumb as he brushed there slowly. It was distracting. 

“Whose turn is it to play?”

He’d half worried that would give him away, and spoil the dream until next time, but Damianos only seemed to preen at the idea that he’d made Laurent forget himself.

“Mine,” he said. 

Laurent threw another look at the table. Four cards each, three uncovered between them. The deck appeared to be Akielon, with the suit of laurels and a chiton-clad Kyros instead of the armoured Captain. The game, however, was one Laurent knew very well. 

“If you play the Queen, you'll win the hand,” he explained. “You might do that, if you believe it is worth it to play such a valuable card early in the game.”

“Early? We’ve been playing for half of an hour.”

Laurent blinked. Damianos laughed. Under the table, he tightened his grip on Laurent's calf.

“You always stall for time,” he said, low and fond. Then he played his Queen.

Laurent threw Damianos his least valuable card, annoyed at having to concede even this much. When they took from the deck again he drew the four of daggers, and Damianos found himself in possession of the Kyros of Flames. 

Damianos took one look at Laurent's face and laughed again. 

“What should I play now?”

“Whatever you like,” Laurent said. “Did we shuffle the deck before playing? I'm not sure we did.”

“You shuffled it yourself.”

“I don't remember,” Laurent said, truthfully. 

Damianos played one of his Kyroi. Laurent threw down the four, worthless as it was, and when they drew from the deck again he'd savaged enough to be able to capture two of the three cards on the table.

In the end, Damianos won by three points. 

“I can't believe I let you see my cards.” 

Damianos looked smug. “You said it would help me learn.”

_Fuck you_ , Laurent almost said. But the words died in his throat. It was comfortable in here, with the lull of rain outside the window and the warm candlelight. He was very aware of Damianos’s hand on his leg. 

Laurent swallowed. 

“Let's play again.”

— 

The main feast lasted all of five hours. After all the courses had been brought out Laurent opened the dances with the Akielon ambassador, who’d asked for the honour very politely in front of the whole court. It had gathered all sorts of reactions, relations between their countries being what they were. She had a very self-satisfied smile as they moved around the floor, and every line of her body told Laurent it was only in deference to protocol that she was letting him lead. Afterwards, he danced with Vannes and Lord Eudes of Chasteigne and then, as the liquor began to flow and the hall became more raucous, with Lord Jerome. His steps were slightly too heavy, but graceful, and there was something inviting in the feel of his hand resting lightly on Laurent’s shoulder.

He went back to his seat afterwards, as he usually did at this point of the evening, but he felt slightly disappointed. All over people were drinking and dancing; divans and alcoves were occupied by trysting lovers. He heard the echo of Nicaise’s words in his mind. _You’re hateful_. 

Laurent took a sip from his half-forgotten wine cup, just to feel the taste of it in his mouth. Then he stood up again and went to find Lord Jerome again, and it was easy to get him to follow him out of the ballroom and into the private corridors of the palace, to press his shoulders into the wall and kiss his lips and try to see if it felt like kissing in the dreams did.

Once in his bedroom, Jerome seemed to have some trouble with the laces at Laurent’s neck — not that Laurent could blame him. It was one of the most intricate outfits he’d ever worn in his life. “It’s the fashion simpler in the south?” he asked. He pulled Jerome’s hands away from his body, bringing his wrists to the small of his back. “Keep them there,” he ordered, wondering in the meanwhile how to best go about this. It had been easier in the dream. 

Laurent ended up undressing Jerome with his own hands, slowly, which had the added effect of seeing him sway lightly with some unspoken pleasure at the reality of his King stripping him like a servant, as well as providing a pleasant contrast with Laurent who was still clothed. He hummed in satisfaction as Jerome’s broad body was revealed to him piece by piece, his shoulders and upper arms surprisingly tanned. This time, when he took Jerome’s hands in his own it was to place them over the hard bulge of his cock in his trousers. 

“These laces are easier,” Laurent said. He pressed up into the touch, and resolutely didn't think of Damianos. 

That week he had Jerome three more times, late at night instead of dreaming. He was straightforward and he had a contagious laugh, and the muscles of his thighs rippled pleasantly under Laurent’s palms. Jerome left Arles to visit the estates of some cousin in the north; on the day of his departure, he informed Laurent that he might pass through Arles on the way back if there might be a cause for it. He said it very politely. Striving for that same politeness, Laurent nodded his head at him. “Do as you wish.“

—

After Jerome there was a young officer from the retinue of the Kemptian ambassador, due to travel back home soon, and an older nobleman from the court who was between pet contracts and inclined to discretion. It didn't seem to keep him from dreaming, but it was distraction enough that he did not think about Damianos while he was awake. Not much, at any rate. 

The dreams were different. Damianos, it turned out, liked swimming, in the turquoise seas of Akielos and in shallow rivers that looked almost familiar. They’d go naked, and then afterwards lay on the sun-kissed rocks so they could get dry. He dreamed of teaching Damianos how to play Veretian games of cards, studying his face attentively to learn all his tell-tale signs, and one time after that he dreamed that they were playing again, for copper coins, and at the end of the game the one who held the most coin got to decide what they would do next. 

They hadn’t played much for the rest of the evening. 

It was maddening. The more glimpses he caught of the life in his dreams the more he caught himself thinking that perhaps he would enjoy it, even if it was with Damianos - perhaps because of Damianos, even. But it was a dream, and dreams always lied. 

Once he dreamed of having an intimate dinner with Damianos on a terrace, looking down into a rose garden. It was a triumph of colours in the early twilight. There was sweet wine, that he got to taste on Damianos’s lips after, and then he tasted the salt of his skin as he kissed a path down his body. He watched Damianos fall asleep, his long lashes falling to shade his cheeks, his features going slack. Laurent trailed his hand across Damianos’s hair and leaned close to place a kiss on his half-open mouth.

“Sometimes,” he whispered. “I truly regret that you are dead.” 

— 

When word came that the Akielon ambassador had been called back to Ios, Laurent had been half-expecting it. 

“Who gave the order?” He asked, intrigued, during his final meeting with the ambassador. “I thought your King was dying, and your bastard Prince is in prison.” For killing the other Prince. Laurent’s thoughts did not linger on that. 

“I’m not at liberty to disclose that, Your Majesty,” she said.

Lady Jokaste has served at her post for almost two years now, and Laurent had come to know her somewhat. He liked how intelligent she was, how obviously ambitious, and couldn't stand the half smile she got on her lovely face that told him she knew more than she was letting on. 

“I wish you a safe journey, my lady,” Laurent said. “And luck, once you make it back.” 

The last they’d heard from Akielos, the Kyros of Delfeur had been summoned to the capital and arrested on accuses of conspiring with Prince Kastor. The Akielon royal family was in disarray, the King’s right hand on the border in prison, and Laurent had been hearing rumblings of war for weeks. 

Lady Jokaste was more direct. “You’re not going to attack.”

It sounded like half a guess, half an order. Laurent did not enjoy the presumption of it. “Am I? Because I like to wait and see?”

“Because you wouldn’t risk senseless death.”

“No,” Laurent said. “Your people did that all by themselves.” 

When news had come from Akielos that the King's bastard had killed his legitimate half-brother, Laurent had thought that it served all of them well. Lady Jokaste’s Akielon delegation had been shocked by the news, but he’d refused to acknowledge their grief. Once the dreams had started coming, Laurent had wondered if his mind was punishing him.

It was nothing Jokaste needed to know.

“Goodbye, my lady,” he said. 

“You’re not going to—”

“I’m not,” Laurent said. He had wanted to go to war against Damianos once, not that many years ago before he realised that doing so would bring destruction to the same people whose lands he wished to reclaim. And now there was no need. 

The ambassador left Arles that afternoon, and Laurent did not watch her leave. 

When he received confirmation of her departure he wondered, once again, where her orders had come from. Perhaps King Theomedes was faring better, and his advisers were hiding his recovery. Or maybe there had been another attempt and the King was dead, and that bastard ruled them all.

He thought about it over dinner, pushing the food around in his plate with little appetite. And then, when it was dark outside and he could feel himself growing drowsy, he began to feel a wistful kind of regret. As he felt himself slip into sleep, Laurent thought that he would have liked the chance to find out for himself what kind of King Damianos could have been.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, hello, this is sappy and cheesy.

It was the golden end of summer. Laurent left the capital for Acquitart, as he did every year, and his presence on the border was even more needed now as tensions in the region escalated. Delfeur still had no Kyros, and Akielos still had no ruler on the throne.

He took advantage of his journey to visit some of the other forts in the region. Fortaine was not entirely pleasant, although Lady Loyse certainly put effort into organising his welcome, and the stay in Ravenel turned into one long mission to de-escalate the warring spirits of Lord Touars and his men. The captain of the guardsmen at Charcy was tall and imposing, and Laurent took notice of his deep laugh and long eyelashes. His dark hair fell over his eyes and he moved with deadly grace in the training yard, and had many of the qualities Laurent had come to realise he preferred. That he might have Akielon blood was not something Laurent stopped to consider. One evening after dinner Laurent invited the captain to his rooms and pinned his wrists against the bedcovers, sucking at the hollow of his jaw as he ground their hips together.

Afterwards he fell asleep, only to find himself in a room much like the one he’d just left with Damianos, who was alive and warm and predictably better company in his dream than any Laurent could ever find awake. As always it left him strangely frustrated when he woke up, and wistful, and angry at himself for still thinking about Damianos. It was more feelings than he knew what to do with.

Acquitart was a welcome sight, with its green-and-gold banners and the orchard where he used to go picking peaches with Auguste. Laurent had barely settled in his quarters when Arnoul found him to offer his report about the state of the fort. 

“There's a dispatch for you, Your Majesty,” he said, halfway through the conversation. “From Akielos?”

That piqued Laurent's interest. “Is there? What does it say?”

“I don't know, Your Majesty. The messenger said he'd talk only to you. He carries a token from the Akielon Kyros.”

Laurent stood up. “Take me to him.”

His steps echoed in the tiled corridor and down familiar stairwells. They had put the messenger in an anteroom near the corridor that led to the barracks, comfortable and tucked out of the way if their guest should reveal himself an inconvenience. Laurent entered the room then stopped dead in his tracks. He knew that face. He’d seen it every night in his dreams.

Damianos stood up, and looked at him.

“Leave us,” Laurent said. He has his sword at the waist, a knife in his boot. His Guard would have checked a foreign messenger for weapons before leaving him in the presence of the King. He’d be safe, he told himself. But even as he reassured himself, there was a part of him that found it hard to even consider that Damianos would ever hurt him.

The door closed behind them, startling Laurent from his thoughts.

“Laurent,” Damianos said, a raspy breath. His sounded just like he did in the dreams. “I am very glad to see you.”

Laurent couldn’t say anything. He stared, as if paralysed.

“You know who I am.”

Damianos said like a certainty. Laurent scoffed. “Of course I do. I’ve seen you before.” The man in front of him didn’t look that much like Damianos had on the battlefield, almost a decade ago, but he was the same face he’d been seeing night after night. He looked just as stunned as Laurent felt. “At Marlas.”

“Yes, there too. Laurent…” Damianos said his name like a prayer. “I’ve been dreaming of you for years.”

Once, in the dream, Laurent had opened his eyes to the crisp light of dawn and found Damianos staring at him with an intent look. Damianos had traced Laurent’s lips with the tip of his finger, the arc of his cheekbone up to the curve of his eyebrow, admiring him like one would a painting. He’d caressed Laurent’s face as if burning the memory of it into his mind. Laurent thought about that dream, now.

He said, “Years?”

Laurent remembered the first time he’d dreamed of Damianos — although he hadn’t known that it was Damianos then. It had been eight months ago, perhaps, or maybe nine. It had been winter and the nights had been cold, and the thought of his dream lover had been all the more pleasant because of it. But there had been no dreams before that.

“Years. It has been… _Laurent_.” Damianos came closer. He reached out with his hand to touch Laurent’s face, like in the dream, and Laurent flinched at the sudden proximity.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve —I thought. Can I tell you about it?”

Silently, tense with nerves, Laurent nodded.

“The dreams were… challenging at first,” Damianos began, and Laurent wondered what he meant. “Strange, inconceivable. Not very pleasant.”

There was something in the way Damianos spoke that captured Laurent’s attention. What he was describing didn’t sound at all like the dreams Laurent had been having. “Are you sure that—”

“You were there,” Damianos interrupted. “In my dreams, as you are now. And I didn’t know what to think, how to— I thought it was a wild fantasy I made up about someone I’d never met. And I didn’t tell anyone, and it saved my life.”

His story sounded fanciful, impossible. Just as Laurent’s own story would have, he supposed, had he revealed it to anyone.

“Why are you here?” What do you want for me, he meant to ask. What are you hoping for?

“A few weeks ago I dreamt and you — I thought it was someone else but he said — you said, in the dream, that you regretted I was dead,” Damianos said, meeting Laurent’s eyes, and Laurent thought, _oh_.

“You were there, weren’t you?” Damianos asked. “You, in the dream. And I thought that perhaps— I wanted to see you.”

It was overwhelming. They were still standing in the middle of the room, so Laurent went to the cushioned chair that had been brought in for him and sat down. He felt dizzy. Damianos was looking at him, staring just as he had since Laurent had walked inside the room, drinking in the sight of him as though he was afraid Laurent would disappear if he moved his eyes away from him.

When Laurent had walked inside the room and saw Damianos he had felt glad, hopeful, strangely whole as though a part of him he hadn’t known he’d been missing had just reappeared in front of him. It was a strange feeling, and it made his head spin like strong wine. He felt lost in the depths.

“You don’t even know me.”

Even as he spat out the words Laurent knew it was a lie. _Years_ , Damianos had said. He would know things Laurent had never allowed another person to learn. Of Damianos, Laurent knew what he ate in the mornings, his tells when he played cards, the way he liked his hair to be pulled when he was being fucked. Which secrets did Damianos know?

Damianos was calling his name.

“Laurent,” he said. “Laurent, I.” He was fiddling with his empty belt, uncharacteristically awkward, hovering.

Sharply, Laurent said, “I heard you were dead.”

“I made it look like I was. I told you,” Damianos said, to Laurent’s confusion. “I learned from you.”

Faking his own death sounded like something Laurent himself might have done. He didn’t know enough about Akielon affairs to imagine what might have happened; he’d only known that Uncle had been in contact with Damianos’s bastard brother before he’d died, but the missives from Akielos had stopped abruptly some time before that.

“Did your brother really try to kill you?”

“No,” Damianos said. “Not this time. He would have killed me once, if not for the dreams. I took matters in hand,” he added darkly. “He won’t.”

Laurent leaned forward in his chair, interested. The thought of conspiracy intrigued him and so did the sense of danger he felt seeping from Damianos, riveting in a different way. Something of that must have shown on his face because Damianos said, “There’s a man, one of my father’s kyroi, who had plotted with my brother years ago. He’d been promised Ios. And when Kastor pulled back…” He made a gesture with his hand. “He didn’t forget. The plan was to kill me and make it look as though my brother had given the order. Not hard to believe.”

His dry laugh held a hint of soreness. Laurent asked, “Is your father truly sick?”

“Yes,” Damianos said, curt. “I should be in Ios right now. Almost everything is in place as it should. But I heard you in the dream and I couldn’t miss— I had to know.” He was fiddling with his hands again, and the flicker of his fingers drew Laurent’s eyes. He’d always liked Damianos’s hands, how they looked, how they felt on his body.

“In the dreams,” said Damianos, “you came here often. We’d spend time together in this castle. There’s a balcony in the eastern wing where we’d go after dinner sometimes, and one of the tiles in the sitting room in your apartments is chipped at the corner and I can’t stop looking at it every time I’m in there.”

“Oh.” Laurent’s dreams had all been of Akielos, that he could remember. “I’ve never had dreams of Acquitart.”

Damianos met his eyes. “This is not a dream.”

It certainly wasn’t. Damianos was here, alive and in the flesh, and his sheer presence was overwhelming. It was as though the world had rearranged with Damianos at its centre, and Laurent couldn’t stop staring at him. He swallowed.

“What did you expect would happen, when you came here?” Laurent asked, calm. He kept his voice even. “Did you think you’d walk in here and I’d fall into bed with you?”

Knowingly, Damianos said, “Don’t you want to?”

Laurent could feel the flush of heat creeping on his face. There was an air of confidence about Damianos that was undeniably attractive, and made Laurent want to hit him on the mouth. He’d look good with a swollen lip.

He swallowed again. “I have more pressing duties to see to.”

“Right,” Damianos said. He sounded amused. “As it happens, so do I.”

“When I came here,” he went on. “I thought — I just wanted to see you. And I’d like to know you, for real. And you can’t tell me you don’t feel the same.”

“You’re presumptuous.”

“I’ve been told.” Damianos smiled, bright and warm and Laurent could look nowhere else.

“I’m going to kiss you,” Damianos said, presuming even further. It wasn’t a question; it was merely so that Laurent could feel the rising sense of anticipation as Damianos moved, the resounding heartbeat in his temples as Damianos’s hand came to brush his face, tilting his chin up.

“I,” Laurent began, but there was nothing he could’ve said as Damianos’s lips pressed against his own, warm and half-open, swallowing any sound he might have made. Laurent’s eyes fell close; he didn’t quite know what to do with his hands. Damianos’s hands were on his face, keeping him steady as he was kissed, and the hint of Damianos’s teeth as he sucked on his bottom lip made him shudder.

When Damianos pulled back, he felt adrift.

“That was,” Laurent cleared his throat. “Not entirely bad.”

“Laurent.” Damianos laughed, fond. “I can’t — I really can’t stay here. I should be in Akielos. But I—”

“You may,” Laurent said. “Visit again. If you wish. We could meet again after.”

“Are you saying you’ll wait for me?”

Laurent couldn’t think of a good answer, and he was relieved when Damianos kissed him again so that he did not have to think of one. The kiss was quicker this time, a light press of lips, and then Damianos took both of Laurent’s hands between his palms and brought them to his mouth to kiss his fingers, the back of his hands.

“Laurent,” he said. “I wish—”

“Yes,” Laurent said. “Please. Yes.”

—

There were no more dreams after that. It took Laurent about a week to notice and two more to be completely sure, and the realisation left him with an odd sense of calm. It was only right, he supposed, that he wouldn’t dream of Damianos again. The visions had served their purpose.

Once Laurent made his way back to Arles it wasn’t long before the Akielon ambassador returned as well, following the news of the miraculous survival of Prince Damianos and his ascension after his father’s death. Two of the kyroi had been executed for treason along with a dozen minor nobles, something that seemed to delight the court of Vere. The lords and ladies of Arles had never expected that Akielon nobility would be capable of elaborate political intrigues, and when Lady Jokaste arrived she found herself at the centre of a flurry of renewed attention.

The first time Laurent spoke to her after her return from Ios, Jokaste fixed him with a knowing look.

“Would you also enjoy the latest gossip, Your Majesty?” she asked, and Laurent scoffed.

“Not really, no.”

“Not that you need it. I suppose,” she said, slowly, “that you have your own report waiting for you.”

And she handed Laurent a letter.

The missive was thick, the seal royal Akielon red imprinted with the lion’s head that was on Damianos’s pin. It burned in Laurent’s pocket all evening, heavy with the weight of all the words that hadn’t yet been spoken between them, and when he opened it in the privacy of his quarters he couldn’t suppress a stupid smile.

—

The next time Laurent visited Acquitart for the summer, one year later, Damen was there. He’d arrived the night before from Marlas, and rode out to meet Laurent early in the morning so that they might travel the last of the road side by side.

The path was flanked by short trees and heavy with dust. Laurent stopped their horses on the side of the road at a secluded curve, out of sight from his retinue, and tugged the neck of Damen’s tunic down so he could kiss him. The sun was warm on his skin, and the sensation of their bodies pressed together made him shudder.

“I missed you,” he breathed into the kiss. “I thought — I hated the last few miles.” And then, teasing, as he always said, “Did you think of me?”

Damen’s eyes were bright as he spoke, a familiar reply, and Laurent laughed. “Laurent,” he said, against his lips. “I dreamed of you.”

And he kissed him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone is wondering, I intended the dream visions as a sort of soulmate thing. Both Damen and Laurent had dreams of their canon selves, though there were differences in when the dreams started happening and what they each saw. The dream where Damen heard Laurent say he was dead, which prompted him to seek Laurent out, was the only dream they both shared. It's definitely a lot of thought for something that hardly made it into the fic!
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! tumblr @liesmyth


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